efore her, and felt a bit foolish, but she also recalled that
Northrup might be in the woods!

"You may go on to the inn," she said to her man, "and make arrangements.
I am going to remain over night and start back early to-morrow
morning. Explain that I am walking and will be there shortly."

The quiet man at the door of the car touched his cap and took his
place at the wheel.

This was to Kathryn a thrilling adventure. The silence and beauty were
as novel as any experience she had ever known, and her pulses
quickened. The solitude of the woods was not restful to her, but it
stimulated every sense. The leaves were dropping from the trees; the
sunlight slanted through the lacy boughs in exquisite design, and the
sky was as blue as midsummer. There was a smell of wood smoke in the
crisp air; the feel of the sweet leaves, underfoot, was delightful.
Kathryn "scruffed" along, unmindful of her high heels and thin silk
stockings. She did not know that she _could_ be so excited.

She crossed the road and turned to the hill. An impish impulse swayed
her. If she came upon Northrup! Well, how romantic and thrilling it
would be! She fancied his surprise; his----Here she paused. Would it
be joy or consternation that would betray Northrup?

Now, as it happened, Mary-Clare had given her morning up to the
business of the Point and she was worn and super-sensitive. An
underlying sense of hurry was upon her. When she had done all that she
could do, she meant to go to her Place and lay her tired soul open to
the influence that flooded the quiet sanctuary. All day this had
sustained her. She would leave Noreen at the inn; send Jan-an back
there, and would, after her hour in the cabin, seek Larry out and give
him what he asked--the Point.

Through the hours at the inn she had feared Northrup's appearance, but
when she learned that he had been away all night, she feared _for_
him. Her uneventful days seemed gone forever, and yet Mary-Clare knew
that soon--oh, very soon--there would be to-morrows, just plain
to-morrows running one into another.

She was distressed, too, that Larry was to have the Point. Aunt Polly
had shaken her head over it and remarked that it seemed like dropping
the Pointers into Maclin's mouth. But Peter reassured her.

"I see your side, child," he comforted. "What the old doc said _goes_
with you."

"But it was Larry, not the doctor, as specified the Point," Polly
insisted.

"All right, all right," Peter p